6 strangled, 1 decapitated in Mexican resort city of Cancun

Seven suspects in the killing of seven people in Cancun are presented to the media during a news conference on Sunday.

By Reuters

CANCUN, Mexico -- Six people were strangled to death and one decapitated in the southern Mexican tourist resort of Cancun on Sunday, the state's deputy attorney general said, in the latest mass killing to strike the city in the last few weeks.

Police found the bodies of the five men and two women in a shack in the outskirts of Cancun, a major tourist destination on Mexico's Caribbean coast, that has largely escaped the drug-related violence that has racked Acapulco, a faded tourist destination on the Pacific coast.

"It looks like the victims were independent drug dealers without any links to any specific cartel," said Juan Ignacio Hernandez, deputy attorney general of Quintana Roo state.

Last month six people died and five were injured after two men opened fire in a bar on the outskirts of Cancun.

In a separate incident, police on Sunday found the body of another man in Cancun who had been gagged, bound and wrapped in sheets.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has promised to put an end to the violence that exploded after his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, launched a military-led attack on the warring cartels.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2007.